Have just started testing and dosing(2 weeks) brightwell iodion and am seeing colour enhancements across my SPS and LPS with better polyp extension, BUT I have also just started dosing amino acids and feeding rotifers and cyclopeeze so cant be sure, I never can just do one thing at a time lol.

helps prevent allsorts of issues, from goitre in fish fed a poor diet (which lets face it is any captive diet probably) and enhances coral pigmentation by aiding zooxanthellae. It accellerates nutrient removal in the aquarium by feeding various naturally occuring photosynthetic algaes and bacterias but potentially under favourable conditions reduces the present numbers of potentially harmful non photosynthetic oxidising bacteria that compete with these beneficial species and the corals themselves. in essence making live rock more efficient at nutrient fixing albeit slightly at the levels we encounter!

Yeah thats the iodine i use Dave,as a dip do you find it browns out your sps m8?.

Hi Linds,

Yes it has browned out a few in the past.I tend to use it as an aggressive short dip.I mix it like strong tea.I used it like that once and forgot about an acro crab and the crab dropped dead in less than 10 seconds.I also use it in the bucket when acclimating new corals to just tint the water and then use a turkey baster to blast new corals and also shake the living daylights out of them.This should reveal any nasty's.If you mix it too strong you cant see any bugs at the bottom of the bucket.I think it helps to let sps dry out for 5 minutes before a strong dip to make sure all the polyps are totaly closed.You can also inspect the coral under strong lighting better if its less wet.

helps prevent allsorts of issues, from goitre in fish fed a poor diet (which lets face it is any captive diet probably) and enhances coral pigmentation by aiding zooxanthellae. It accellerates nutrient removal in the aquarium by feeding various naturally occuring photosynthetic algaes and bacterias but potentially under favourable conditions reduces the present numbers of potentially harmful non photosynthetic oxidising bacteria that compete with these beneficial species and the corals themselves. in essence making live rock more efficient at nutrient fixing albeit slightly at the levels we encounter!

HTH

Tom

I used Red Sea Iodine supplement. Dont know if my system runs high iodine and the supplement pushed it over the edge, a dodgy batch or what but the system deffinitly didn't like it. Too scared to try it again!

Ok,Blacktip has raised a good question,what benefits are there in including iodine in a reef aquarium?.What if any are the signs to look for of a system being over dosed with iodine?

One thought here folks:

Please distinguish iodine and iodide. Iodine (found in Lugols and tincture of iodine) is a decent antiseptic - it kill bacteria (and other life if you get enough of it.) Iodide is the form found normally in sea water. (Think the difference between bleach (chlorine) and table salt (chloride....))

I add iodide daily from a pump and timer, and occasionally it runs out. When this occurs, two things happen:- my xenia gets unhappy, does not inflate or grow as much- the cleaner shrimp stops moulting. No, seriously - re-fill the iodide supply and he will moult about 2-4 days later.

I used to use Salifert iodine, but when it ran out, I made my own. (You can get potassium iodide on ebay, and a 0-100g scale (good to 10 mg) cost under £15) Now I make a stock iodide solution (0.5g KI in 500 ml of water), and then dilute 15 ml of that up to 105 ml in my magic brew. The pump adds 5ml/day of brew to a total tank+sump of 200l. (The same brew also contain 2.6 ml of 5% strontium, but that's another story) NSW is 1/16 of a milligram of iodide per litre (60 ppb) - hence adding such apparently tiny amounts is correct.

I have only ever used iodine once, when my xenia had a serious crash. Don't know if it helped, but it did regrow. Iodine is recommended for some coral diseases, but I've not yet needed to try it.

Hi,Salifert say,Natural seawater contains iodide and iodate,iodide 0.02 to 0.03ppm and iodate 0.03 to 0.04 ppm.In aquariums a level of 0.03 to 0.06 ppm of both is fine.They also say that iodate is more stable in an aquarium,but iodide gets depleted very fast.The iodate part of the test also tests molecular iodine.They say that if you dose molecular iodine then that will be transformed within hours into iodide and iodate.Looking at how they have put it,there are various forms of iodine such as iodide,iodate and molecular iodine.To be honest i have always dosed aprox half the stated dose and found that to be OK,but i use the Tropic Marin Pro Coral Iodine,i may go over to the Salifert Natural Iodine which is made up of Iodide and Iodate like NSW .